[Telepathy] Presence API in gnome-session

[Robert McQueen]

Frederic Peters wrote:
> Hello Telepathy Hackers; hello Jon;

Hi Frederic, Jon,

> A D-Bus Presence API has just been commited to gnome-session,
>   http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-session?view=revision&revision=5192
>   http://svn.gnome.org/svn/gnome-session/trunk/gnome-session/org.gnome.SessionManager.Presence.xml
> 
> It will be used by the user switch applet (now part of gdm),
>   http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gdm?view=revision&revision=6659

Cool. Although I'd slim the interface down into two properties you can
access with GetAll/Get on the D-Bus properties interface, and just have
one set method and change signal. Tracking the status and message
separately seems needless and will just double up signals/method calls
for almost all users.

> It thought you Empathy/Telepathy guys could discuss (with Jon) how it
> could fit with your needs, and how it could match your Presence API.

Sure, it should be pretty easy for Empathy or Mission Control to just
track this and update your IM presence. One concern is the enum type, it
seems a little patchy compared to what Telepathy uses to classify presence:
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/spec.html#type-Connection_Presence_Type

Obviously you can ignore unknown and error, but the idle vs away/xa
thing worries me. Idleness is kind of orthogonal. I guess you /could/
read idle as away, but people can go away with a certain reason (out to
lunch, at the movies, whatever) which is more more meaningful than mere
idleness. I'd use idleness to automatically set away (with no message)
and promote away to extended away, but I'd call the enum members AWAY
and XA, and allow the user to set both busy and away with messages as
they're different things.

> Cheers,
>         Frederic

Regards,
Rob

-- 
Robert McQueen                                 +44 7876 562 564
Director, Collabora Ltd.             http://www.collabora.co.uk